The normalizing, hardening, and austempering heat treatment, which involve austenitization,
followed by controlled cooling or isothermal reaction, or a combination of the two, can
produce a variety of microstructures and greatly extend the limits on the mechanical
properties of ductile cast iron.

These microstructures can be separated into two broad classes:

Those in which the major iron-bearing matrix phase is the thermodynamically stable
body-centered cubic (ferrite) structure

Those with a matrix phase that is a meta-stable face-centered cubic (austenite)
structure.

The former are usually generated by the annealing, normalizing, normalizing and tempering,
or quenching and tempering processes. The latter are generated by austempering, an isothermal
reaction process resulting in a product called austempered ductile iron (ADI).

Other heat treatments in common industrial use include stress-relief annealing and selective
surface heat treatment. Stress-relief annealing does not involve major micro-structural
transformations, whereas selective surface treatment (such as flame and induction surface
hardening) does involve microstructural transformations, but only in selectively controlled
parts of the casting.

The basic structural differences between the ferritic and austenitic classes are explained
in the Fig 1 and 2. Figure 1 shows a continuous cooling transformation (CCT) diagram and
cooling curves for furnace cooling, air-cooling, and quenching.

It can be seen from Fig 1 that slow furnace cooling results in a ferritic matrix (the
desired product of annealing), whereas the cooling curve for air cooling, or normalizing,
results in a pearlitic matrix, and quenching produces a matrix microstructure consisting
mostly of martensite with some retained austenite. Tempering softens the normalized and
quenched conditions, resulting in microstructures consisting of the matrix ferrite with
small panicles of iron carbide (or secondary graphite).

Figure 2 shows an isothermal transformation (IT) diagram for a ductile cast iron, together
with a processing sequence depicting the production of ADI. In this process, austenitizing
is followed by rapid quenching (usually in molten salt) to an intermediate temperature range
for a time that allows the unique metastable carbon-rich (≈2% C) austenitic matrix (γH)
to evolve simultaneously with nucleation and growth of a plate-like ferrite (α) or of
ferrite plus carbide, depending on the austempering temperature and time at temperature.

This austempering reaction progresses to a point at which the entire matrix has been
transformed to the metastable product (stage I in Fig 2), and then that product is
"frozen in" by cooling to room temperature before the true bainitic ferrite plus
carbide phases can appear (stage II in Fig 2).

In ductile cast irons the presence of 2 to 3 wt% Si prevents the rapid
formation of iron carbide (Fe3C). Hence the carbon rejected during ferrite
formation in the first stage of the reaction (stage I in Fig 2) enters the matrix austenite,
enriching it and stabilizing it thermally to prevent martensite formation upon subsequent
cooling. Thus the processing sequence in Fig 2 shows that the austempering reaction is
terminated before stage II begins and illustrates the decrease in the martensite start (Ms)
and martensite finish (Mf) temperatures as γH forms in stage I. Typical austempering
times range from 1 to 4 h depending on alloy content and section size. If the part is
austempered too long, undesirable bainite will form. Unlike steel, bainite in cast iron
microstructures exhibits lower toughness and ductility.